A member of the State Board of Education, who is also a high school teacher and a Charlottesville City Council member, is in trouble over lewd, misogynistic, racist and sexually tinged messages he sent out over social media in recent years.

Wes Bellamy went on leave Tuesday from his job at Albemarle High School, according to the school board there. The board chairwoman said in a statement that posts from Bellamy's Twitter account, unearthed late last week and largely dating between 2009 and 2014, "contain extremely vulgar and offensive language that directly contradicts the values of our school division."

Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who appointed Bellamy to the Virginia State Board of Education in March, was apparently having trouble getting his appointee on the telephone Tuesday afternoon. Bellamy's future on the board, which develops statewide education policies and graduation requirements, was unclear.

"The governor is horrified by the content that has been reported on recently from Mr. Bellamy's Twitter feed," McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said after several requests for comment Tuesday. "He has reached out to Mr. Bellamy and is awaiting a return call."

Multiple Daily Press attempts to reach Bellamy were unsuccessful, but he apologized Sunday evening on his Facebook page for the tweets, which a writer named Jason Kessler published online Thanksgiving day. In his Facebook post, Bellamy called the tweets "disrespectful, and quite frankly, ignorant comments" that "rightfully upset people."

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Weissmann’s biggest case involved prosecutions of more than 30 people on charges related to the 2001 collapse of energy conglomerate Enron.

Weissmann’s biggest case involved prosecutions of more than 30 people on charges related to the 2001 collapse of energy conglomerate Enron.

"I sincerely apologize for the inappropriate things I posted to social media many years ago," Bellamy wrote. "Elected officials should be held to a higher standard, and while I was not in office at the time, in this instance I came up short of the man I aspire to be."

He went on to say that he has advised young people to represent themselves better online and that he should have taken his own advice.

Since this story broke, Bellamy has made his Twitter account private, protecting his posts on the social media platform from public view. But Kessler and The Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, published a number of them.

In 2009, Bellamy joked about women lying about how many sexual partners they've had, ending the tweet with a derogatory word that begins with a "c." In 2011, he wrote that "a female principal with a school full of female teachers" was a "sure way" to mess up little boys.

In 2011, he said white women are the devil. In 2012, he tweeted that it was "so sad seeing these beanpole body white women in these sundresses."

In 2010, he said he hates that "almost 80% of the black people here talk white," and in 2011 he said he hates "seeing white people in Orangeburg," which is in South Carolina, where he attended college.

In December 2009, he tweeted that, "I DONT LIK WHIT PEOPLE SO I HATE WHITE SNOW!!!!!" according to The Cavalier Daily.

He has also tweeted out a common slur for gay men, and frequently used the "n" word. Some of his tweets are difficult to describe in a newspaper because they are so lewd.

Bellamy, 30, said on Facebook that he has grown up a lot since these posts. He said that "in the course of trying to mature and find my way I came to some false conclusions about the world around me."

He was elected to the council last year, then named vice mayor. He has been teaching in Albemarle County since 2011, when he was hired as a substitute teacher. He was made full time in August 2012, according to the system.

Bellamy, originally from Atlanta, also said on Facebook that "one of the best things that has happened to me" since moving to Charlottesville in 2009 has been meeting people of all races, which "helped me expand my horizons and grow."